What to Expect - Lower Elementary

The Elementary classroom is a mini society where children actively seek to find and create a place in the group.

Students share the responsibility of managing their community; they learn to respect and care for themselves, others and the environment. Interdisciplinary studies combine language, mathematics, sciences, geography, history and the arts. Mastery of mathematical and analytical processes, writing and communications skills and reading comprehension are the disciplines emphasized at this level.

The Elementary program extends the continuum begun during the toddler and preschool years. The environment reflects a new, more abstract stage of development and offers the following:

Integration of the arts, sciences, geography, history and language that evokes the native imagination and abstraction of the elementary child.

Presentation of the formal scientific language of zoology, botany, anthropology, geography, geology, etc., exposing the child to accurate, organized information and respecting the child’s intelligence and interests.

The use of timelines, pictures, charts and other visual aids to provide a linguistic and visual overview of the first principles of each discipline.

Presentation of knowledge as part of a large-scale narrative that unfolds the origins of the earth, life, human communities and modern history, always in the context of the wholeness of life.

A mathematics curriculum presented with concrete materials that simultaneously reveal arithmetic, geometric and algebraic correlations.

The elementary students are required to wear approved school uniform.